Category Archives: Latin America

The NDP are proud protectionists. Though Mercantilism has long been out of style no party holds on to failed policies tighter than the NDP.* Recently the NDP (36 nobodies elected by a portion of the population) have been attempting to filibuster a Free-Trade bill with Colombia. The reasons they give are false and foolishly idealistic. They claim that human rights concerns should prevent Canada from trading with Colombia. Though Colombia is far from perfect there are many reasons why the NDP are wrong to oppose this Free-Trade agreement.

Colombia does have problems with Left-wing guerrilla fighters and right wing Para-military troops terrorizing its citizens. It is also a terrible place to be a journalist. Thankfully, President Alvaro Uribe has taken a tough stance against left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries alike. Under his presidency, the murder rate and the incidence of kidnapping have fallen. Colombia was not adversely affected by the recession and it growing slowly and steadily. This resilience stems from continued foreign investment and President Uribe is keen for international mediation to continue mediating the violence in his country. Colombia is a staunch American ally and has not aligned itself with Hugo Chavez, largely because of President Uribe’s leadership. Chavez has supported the FARCs in Colombia and has cut off trade with his neighbour and is trying to get other countries in the region to join him. Bilateral trade between Venezuela and Colombia totaled $7.2 billion last year, of which $6 billion consisted of Colombian exports, mainly of food, live animals, clothing and cars.

By signing a Free-Trade agreement with Colombia Canada will help create jobs in both countries. This will lift Colombians out of poverty which leads to better education and less violence. Bilateral agreements strengthen President Uribe which allows him to effectively combat the left/right wing terrorists in his country while Colombia’s economy grows which combats the route of violence. The United States Congress has a similar Free-Trade bill in the works. Free-Trade helps strengthen democracy and give the impoverished opportunities.

The NDP’s obstruction hurts the Canadian and Colombian economies and strengthens the guerrillas and paramilitary forces there. If the NDP really cared about human rights they would work to ensure the Free-Trade agreement with Colombia was passed, instead they do what the NDP do best: talk, talk talk.

Meth is one of only a syringeful of drugs I don’t think should be legalized. The United States has been moderately successful at combating Meth at home. This week the DEA led a campaign that saw the arrests of more than 300 alleged meth traffickers in the U.S., all allegedly tied to La Familia. Since the war on drugs is based on flawed premises and uses techniques that are counter-factual this progress is superficial. When the USA squeezed the meth producers within its borders Mexico picked up the slack. ‘When the U.S. Congress enacted the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act four years ago, it created a lucrative trafficking niche for La Familia.’ While some La Familia bosses were arrested in Mexico this week, most if not all those captured in the 15-state roundup in the U.S. were lower-level traffickers and enforcers (just like in Batman when Harvey Dent arrests all of the low-level criminals in Gotham City.)

The illegal drug problem is a transnational issue. The United States’ solution has been the same since the Nixon administration and since President Nixon production and consumption of all most every variety of drugs has gone up year after year.

One solution to this problem is legalization of marijuana. You can roll your eyes but the Narcos in Mexico get a lot of their money from marijuana sales. If the United States, Canada and Mexico legalized cannabis all three of our governments would make billions off of sales taxes, the gangs wouldn’t lose a majority of their funding, crime in Canada/the US would go down, the police would have extra resources to pursue real criminals and everyone would benefit.

A few weeks ago Mexico decriminalized many different drugs. This is a good first step but international problems need international solutions. Canada/Mexico/the US have been fighting the failed War on Drugs together for years. The problems of coordination and efficiency should be solved by the harmonization of policy between the countries. Unfortunately the very premise that drugs can be “fought” (one built upon the fallacious lies that cannabis is bad and imprisonment deters crime) has been proven false.

This small victory against those who make Meth will squeeze the balloon once again causing a bulge in another part of the world.

Mexico: Decriminalized small amounts of a wide variety of drugs (including heroin and marijuana) on August 21st.
Argentina: Today, their supreme court in ruled that it is unconstitutional to punish people for using marijuana for personal consumption. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has repeatedly called for decriminalization of marijuana in Argentina.

Brazil/Ecuador: According to the Cato Institute and the Buenos Aires Herald have reported that the governments of Brazil and Ecuador are moving towards decriminalization.

The United States: President Obama has decided to continue fighting the “War on Drugs.”

The Latin American Initiative on Drugs and Democracy has been pushing for progressive drug reform in Latin America. With the United States being obstinate and regressive in their drug policy (the American public are paradoxically against drug reform so it doesn’t really matter who is President) it is up to every other country in the Western hemisphere to behave rationally and legalize marijuana and decriminalize all other drugs.

Mexico and Argentina have taken a big step forward but unfortunately decriminalization is a haphazard solution. Marijuana is only illegal because for some reason, even though it is less dangerous as cigarettes and the same as alcohol, society has decided to prohibit it. Decriminalization says that it is bad but you wont be punished for using it. Countries that decriminalize marijuana should be lauded as the politicians responsible for doing so are extremely brave. Sometimes the government has to act and society has to catch up (see civil rights or health care in USA.) Decriminalization is a big first step as cannabis has been misunderstood for years and many Canadians believe the myths about cannabis.

Thoughts:
– Drug decriminalization does help to reduce harm or drugs, lessen their use and is a viable solution. If Mexico wants to solve its drug problem it needs to be willing to sincerely work on harm-prevention.

– The consensus towards the need for reform in Latin America is supported by former and current political leaders, academics, medical professionals, community activists and regular citizens (of Latin America.) “Today, reform advocates populate every level of Mexican society and have hosted forums on drug legalization for universities, city councils, and, recently, the federal legislature.”

– A solid majority of American’s polled said they believe that the “War on Drugs” has failed and the same percentage also are against any more of legalization. This fact combined with President Obama’s cowardice on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” mean that the current administration will be keeping with the, failed, status quo in the “drug war.” President Obama had already made it clear that the idea of a “war on drugs” was not workable so he is worlds ahead of the previous administration.

– The Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy is co-chaired by former Presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Cesar Gaviria of Colombia, and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico.

– Latin American commission on drugs and democracy: Marijuana and cocaine for personal use should be decriminalized because the “war on drugs” has failed. This failed policy encourages corruption (among police officers, politicians and even judges) and violence that is threatening democracy throughout the continent. The Commission has called for International Convention to insure synergy in drug policy.*

– More than 57% of Chileans polled by the organization said they opposed marijuana legalization. Only slightly more than one out of five (21.7%) supported legalization for medical reasons, and slightly fewer than one out of five (19.6%) supported general legalization (Ipsos Polling.)

– For 2 years the Mexican army has been deployed to fight drug smugglers/growers/seller across Mexico. The drug trade is Mexico and Central/South America is closely connected to the illegal weapons trade. Both sides (the government and the smugglers) have been made the fight escalate (in terms of weapons and attacks) and the violence and deaths have also kept pace. The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years, in contrast to 59 seized over the previous two years. Parts of Mexico have become war zones. The national Human Rights Commission recently condemned the military for human rights abuse claims in Michoacán, President Calderón’s home state and the starting point for the military anti-drug initiatives.

– Any Illegal Drug related proposal should come out of the Latin American countries as they are the ones who deal with drug related problems on a daily basis. The “War on Drugs” is an American policy that failed because it was imposed upon Latin America (and the world) without any input. The drug problem in Mexico and Central/South America cannot be solved in one stroke with mass legalization with no followup. Any solution needs to be treatment-oriented with serious changes in the social service and government attitude in those countries. Education and awareness is a powerful tool in reducing drug use, drastically different/more effective than prohibition. The problem with waiting for the United States to act is that the “War on Drugs” has been the most potent/effective export of United States foreign policy so it is entrenched throughout the Western hemisphere. The political system in the United States was designed so that drastic change is next to impossible. Just as many countries in Latin America threw off the yoke of colonialism they must now cast off this regressive failed policy and act on their own.

A call for drug policy-reform is echoing across Latin America, where a decades-long, U.S.-sponsored battle against drug production and distribution has fostered a climate of fear, insecurity, and death. Throughout the region, former and current political leaders have allied with academics, medical professionals, and community activists to issue an appeal for a multinational dialogue on alternatives to the current drug war, including a possible end to drug prohibition.

In February, the multidisciplinary Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy (co-chaired by former Presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Cesar Gaviria of Colombia, and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico) called the drug war a “failure” and issued a groundbreaking report urging other governments in the region–including the United States–to rethink prohibition policy. More recently, on a May 2009 trip to Atlanta, where he gave the commencement address at Emory University, former President Vicente Fox of Mexico told an interviewer that the time has come to “discuss and assess the possibility” of legalizing drugs.

Nowhere is the sense of urgency more acute than in Mexico, where President Felipe Calderon’s ongoing battle against the drug cartels has left parts of the country in a near perpetual state of combat. According to Milenio, a Mexican media association, the campaign has claimed more than 10,000 lives since December 2006, when Calderon deployed the military to help federal police in their fight against the cartels.

The death toll includes countless civilians, and Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission says the drug war has led to an exponential surge in reported cases of official abuse. Increasingly, human-rights activists are drawing a direct link between drug prohibition and human-rights violations. “Without a doubt, rethinking the criminalization of drug use would be a very important long-term strategy to improving the serious human-rights situation that Mexico is facing today,” says Ana Paula Hernandez, a Mexico City-based human-rights activist and political consultant. Mexico’s opposition parties are hoping to capitalize on the country’s mounting impatience with Calderon’s struggle against narcotic trafficking and its bloody side effects to regain seats in the legislature from the president’s party, the Partido Accion Nacional (PAN). As the Prospect went to press, midterm elections–scheduled for July 5–were gearing up to be, in part, a referendum on the president’s drug policies. Up for grabs are all 500 seats in Mexico’s lower House–the Chamber of Deputies–as well as governorships in six states and hundreds more positions in state legislatures and city halls. At least one party, the social democrat Partido Socialdemocrata (PSD) has placed legalization on its official platform, and members of one of the country’s two main opposition parties–the center-left Partido de la Revolucion Democratica (PRD)–are floating their own legalization proposals. There are presently two active PRD bills to decriminalize marijuana: one at the federal level and one in Mexico City.

According to journalist Dan Feder, who covered the Mexican legalization movement extensively from 2002 until 2004, representatives of nearly every political party in Mexico have proposed legalizing drugs at one time or another. The country’s first legalization bill was introduced in 1998 by PAN Senator Maria del Carmen Bolado del Real. But Feder says it wasn’t until the 2000 presidential election–which saw the end of Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) supremacy in Mexican politics and the election of PAN’s Vicente Fox–that a dialogue on drug-policy reform entered mainstream political discourse. By the 2003 midterm elections, new parties like Mexico Posible–a forerunner of PSD–and progressive members of PRD were openly advocating the legalization of marijuana.

Today, reform advocates populate every level of Mexican society and have hosted forums on drug legalization for universities, city councils, and, recently, the federal legislature. Last October, President Calderon himself–a dedicated social conservative–sent a proposal to the Mexican Senate that would decriminalize the possession of small quantities of most drugs, giving users the option of seeking treatment to avoid criminal prosecution while tightening penalties for street dealing. The so-called Ley de Narcomenudeo was passed by both houses of Congress in late April and at press time was awaiting the president’s signature.

Advocates of legalization in Mexico greeted the measure with marked skepticism. Alejandro Madrazo Lajous, a Mexico City-based attorney who advises the reform community, says that while the current bill can theoretically be called decriminalization, in practice authorities maintain inordinate discretion over how it’s applied. “It’s not actually decriminalization insofar as the conduct is still considered a crime,” he says. “Technically the crime still has to be reported and investigated, but it stops there and never reaches court.” Instead, Lajous explains, after a first encounter with police, users are referred to public-health authorities who are empowered to make a determination of addiction (farmacodependencia) and recommend treatment. After a third police encounter, addicts will be compelled to enter treatment; if they refuse or fail to complete the program they face prosecution. Though compelled treatment should apply only to addicts, Lajous says that since farmacodependencia will be predicated on the vague standard of “showing any symptoms of dependency,” he suspects federal authorities will try to send everyone to treatment upon a third report.

Rather than representing an enlightened, treatment-oriented approach to drug use, critics say the new law is more akin to a similar proposal, floated by President Fox in 2004, to create a legal distinction between users and traffickers–not as a public-health initiative but as a necessary step to enforcing stricter penalties against low-level dealers.

“Basically, Fox said that it was important not only to prosecute the big drug barons but also to fight the petty traders who sell retail,” explains Jorge Hernandez Tinajero, director of the drug-policy reform group Colectivo por una Politica Integral Hacia las Drogas (CUPIHD). “But they realized that to enable such a thing they needed to determine who is a small dealer and who is a consumer, [so] Fox proposed establishing quantities of certain drugs to be considered legal for personal possession while tightening, by far, the penalties for those who violate.”

By 2006, Fox’s proposal had passed both houses of the Mexican Congress before the president himself vetoed the bill, allegedly under U.S. pressure.

Like Fox’s proposal, the Calderon bill includes strict mandatory minimums for street-level dealing, and for the first time allows undercover police to make street buys from dealers. The day after the measure passed the Chamber of Deputies, CUPIHD released a statement calling the law a half measure that could potentially do more harm than good. “Nobody can say that Calderon’s proposal is an initiative to decriminalize drug use,” Tinajero says. “If a consumer is caught by the authorities he has two options: either declare himself an addict and be assigned to a rehabilitation center and be ‘cured,’ or be declared a drug trafficker and go through a legal process that can lead to imprisonment. In reality the Calderon proposal will strengthen the war on drugs, especially against consumers.”

Elsa Conde, one of four representatives of the PSD in the Chamber of Deputies and the sponsor of a recent congressional forum on marijuana reform, voted against the bill and worries that the law will further criminalize the “poor and unprotected.” Given the tiny “legal” quantities proposed—5 grams for marijuana, a half gram for cocaine, and even smaller amounts of heroin and methamphetamines–Conde says more users and addicts are likely to be labeled dealers and subjected to the harsher penalties that the law mandates. “We didn’t support this [bill] because while we agree that consumers and traffickers must be adjudicated differently, this proposal will only serve to imprison more people and will not have any real impact on public safety or the supply of drugs,” she explains. “This proposal is not about respecting the rights of consumers.”

Her argument underscores a fundamental ideological split between Mexico’s two main reform groups. Unlike PRD and others who take a pragmatic approach to decriminalization, PSD and its supporters say reforming drug policy is as much about protecting the civil rights of consumers as it is about national security. “The PRD proposes the legalization of drugs only to combat drug trafficking, which I believe reveals, to a certain extent, its conceptual limitations [in thinking] about the problem; they have not yet understood the importance of defending consumers or of taking a civil-rights approach to this argument,” Tinajero says.

Accepting the validity of a pragmatic argument for ending drug prohibition, one must still question how much of an impact even full legalization in Mexico would have on drug violence so long as drugs remain illegal in the U.S. Because American demand will continue to fuel a market for cross-border narcotics traffic, cartel wars over lucrative drug routes are likely to continue regardless of the legal status of drugs in Mexico.

Ricardo Sala, director of the reform group Convivencia y espacio publico, A.C., concedes that under a legalization scenario traffickers will still try their best to reach the U.S. market, but he says regulation will give Mexican authorities more control over how and where drugs are produced and distributed in the country. “Legalization should mean regulation: a better control of drugs and drug availability,” he says. “If the Mexican state has a better control of drug production, transportation and commerce, then it will be more difficult for illegal trade to make it all the way from the fields or through Mexican territory up to the northern border.”

In April, President Barack Obama tapped U.S. Attorney Alan Bersin to serve as the nation’s first “border czar” and has pledged to send an additional 500 federal agents to the U.S.-Mexico border this year in response to drug violence. That’s on top of the estimated $700 million in aid, most of it to support law-enforcement efforts, earmarked for Mexico in 2009. But even with an end to prohibition now being discussed at the highest levels of government in Mexico, reform advocates on both sides of the border admit that any real progress on legalization will still require stronger support from one of the major parties. And that’s unlikely to happen without a change of policy in the United States.